


Pine and Apple Orchard

by Miniatures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Robert Frost, UST, set between changing channels and hammer of the gods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-23
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 17:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3217685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miniatures/pseuds/Miniatures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Gabriel meet every Wednesday night to discuss the Apocalypse. Feelings start to creep up on them, as feelings are wont to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pine and Apple Orchard

 

> _I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;_
> 
> _And on a day we meet to walk the line_
> 
> _And set the wall between us once again._
> 
> _We keep the wall between us as we go._
> 
> -       Robert Frost

 

It was like clockwork, the way they met. Always at night, and always on Wednesdays. _Hump Day,_ Gabriel would say with a waggle of his brow, but Sam knew it had been an arbitrary choice. Just so long as it wasn’t Tuesday, it didn’t matter.

Gabriel would catch him in his motel bed, draw him out into the parking lot so they wouldn’t wake Dean. He’d look Sam up and down a long moment. Eyes shining too bright in the dark, and Sam knew it was just thin light from the streetlamps catching the amber but a part of him thought it might just be that Gabriel was lit from within. Then the archangel would lick his lips and smile slight and dry.

“Still trying to stop it?” he’d ask.

“Yes.”

“It’s not gonna work, you know. The End is nigh, kiddo. Might as well accept it.”

Sam always kept his expression even. “Not gonna happen.”

They would stare at each other too long, and Sam would ache to bridge the gap between them. Grab Gabriel, shake him, bruise him, make him understand. The archangel was unaffected, implacable and smug. Sam was waiting for him to falter. Waiting for him to break open like he had in that warehouse. It almost felt as if Gabriel was waiting for that too. Something would flicker in his eyes, then, and Gabriel would snap his fingers and be gone.

—

Gabriel came one night to find Sam bleeding.

Ghouls liked to make them bleed, and Castiel liked to be elsewhere. So Dean had stitched him up—whiskey and needle, like the days before angels. The stitches were good, but Sam was a bad patient and ghoul marks _itched_ like a motherfucker. His scratches split the seams. He was in the bathroom trying to put himself back together again as red fell stark against the porcelain sink. 

Sam heard something rustle in the room outside. Before he had a chance to register what it was, it came again behind him and Gabriel was in the mirror over his wounded shoulder.

“Hump Day,” he said by way of explanation.

Sam turned to face him. Backed up against the sink, Gabriel backed up against the door. Neither willing to breach the wall between them, even as blood trickled over Sam’s skin.

“Still trying to stop it?” Gabriel asked, nodding at Sam’s wound.

“Yes. This was a ghoul though.”

“Ah.”

There was no gleam. The amber lay flat and cold in Gabriel’s eyes, and there was a tension to the archangel that Sam hadn’t seen there before. Like he was close to moving. Like he couldn’t bring himself to move.

Sam took a step forward, and something in Gabriel shifted. That was the falter, the thing Sam had been waiting for. He crossed the room and stood before the archangel, peering down, daring Gabriel to do something, anything.

They stood a while like that, Sam breathing for the both of them, awash in iron and salt. Gazes locked, Gabriel’s clever lips slack and parted. Inhale, exhale, and on the exhale a question that neither of them knew how to ask.

Gabriel’s palm was soft as it came to rest over Sam’s wound. The air trembled, and suddenly the stitches were falling to the floor and there was nothing on Sam’s shoulder but dry, sticky red.

The archangel’s hand fell away. “It’s not gonna work,” he murmured. “This ends in blood, no matter what you do.”

“I know.”

Gabriel’s brow furrowed and he let out a bitter laugh. “Then _why?”_

Sam smiled. “If I can, I’d like to make sure the only blood is mine.”

That earned him a blink, a sigh, and a flutter of angel’s wings.

—

A few weeks later, on a Tuesday night, Sam called Gabriel. Dean was cut open—demons had set in and tore them up, leaving Sam limping but still golden, Dean a burnt and pulpy mess. Sam mopped up best he could and prayed to Castiel until he thought he might weep. Radio silence, same as it had been for the past who-the-fuck-knew.

Sam was reluctant to pray to Gabriel. Feared that the archangel might take it as him overstepping his boundaries. Dean certainly wouldn’t want him to do it. But Dean had fallen into a restless sleep and his cheeks were frighteningly pale, and Sam had no other choice.

_Gabriel. Please, Gabriel, I need—we need your help. Please._

There was no answer at first. Sam figured he should have known better. Gabriel set the limits—he always did. Still, Sam was desperate. So he called again.

The third time he sent out his prayer, he lifted his head to see Gabriel with two fingers to Dean’s temple. Dean was breathing even, looking peaceful and whole. Gabriel, by contrast, looked tired. Hounded. Sam couldn’t help but smile at him.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Gabriel sighed. “Let this be a lesson to you,” he said. “You can’t help whose blood is spilled. Best to get out while the getting’s good… or in your case, give in before the collateral damage fucks you in the ass. Sam,” Gabriel’s voice was tight, and he had that look again like he wanted to move but couldn’t. But wouldn’t. “Sam, you’re just gonna make it worse.”

“Wow, that’s the most you’ve said to me since the warehouse.”

“For fuck’s sake, would you _listen_ to me? Believe it or not, I’m trying to help you here.”

“I’m not gonna stop,” Sam said. “I have to try.”

The archangel rolled his eyes. “Of course you do. Being noble never ends well, bucko.”

Sam shook his head. “ _Nothing_ ends well. Might as well end right.” 

The quiet was long and cold, and neither of them would be moved. Finally, Sam said, “Thank you, again. For coming.”

Gabriel arched a brow. “Check your watch.”

Then he was gone. Puzzled, Sam did as he was told and checked his watch—12:07 AM.

Always at night, and always on Wednesdays. And Gabriel always set the limits.

—

The Wednesday that Gabriel didn’t appear, Sam spent the night staring at a ceiling. Popcorn and yellowish white with the lights on and blessedly amorphous grey with them off. He mapped it in stains of a darker grey and cracks like thin, black hairs. Waiting for that familiar rustle, for gold in lamplight and a voice like whiskey and summer afternoons.

It wasn’t just apprehension, Sam realized. It was worry, and it was longing. For all that was said and how little was done, his meetings with Gabriel had become a sort of respite. Scattered moments of clarity. The archangel’s visits were a chance for Sam to reaffirm the path he’d chosen. A chance to be honest in a way he couldn’t be with Dean. Because Gabriel understood, though he disagreed.

Sam closed his eyes and saw amber. He tightened his grip on the sheets and cursed the archangel for taking root in two days of Sam’s week.

The Wednesday that Gabriel returned, Sam pretended not to care. But then Gabriel shrugged and smiled and said he was sorry he was late, and Sam couldn’t help but smile back.

Fucker.

—

“You can’t stop it.”

“I can’t accept that. There’s got to be a way.”

“Don’t you think if there was, I’d know?”

“Like you’d tell us—you don’t care what happens to us, so long as it’s over.”

“Not true.” Gabriel eyed him from where he sat on the curb. Sam stared down from his perch on the Impala’s hood. “I care.”

Sam snorted. “Just not enough.”

The archangel frowned, dropped his gaze to the asphalt. “This is the only way it ends, Sam. Or else…”

“Or else?”

“Or else we keep fighting.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

Gabriel raised his head, met Sam’s eye. He looked lost and tired and nine shades of miserable, and Sam itched to move toward him. Didn’t move an inch.

The archangel got to his feet. “If we fight, we stand to lose,” he said. “And I’m not going to lose anyone else.”

He snapped his fingers and was gone. Sam stared at the spot where he’d been, wished desperately he’d closed the gap between them. But this was Gabriel’s game, and Sam needed to keep playing too much to risk taking the reins.

_Anyone. Not anything._

A thought occurred, and Sam checked his watch. 1:13 AM. Thursday morning.

He smiled. Gabriel would be back, and Sam would be waiting.

 

 

> _He is all pine and I am apple orchard._
> 
> _My apple trees will never get across_
> 
> _And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him._
> 
> _He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’._
> 
> -       Robert Frost

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah… there was another Robert Frost poem what got me in that lecture I had. This one is inspired by and titled after "Mending Wall", which is also the poem quoted at the start and end of the fic.


End file.
